Hatters boss: Lack of subs didn't lose us the game

Mike Simmonds

Hatters boss Nathan Jones didn’t feel that his lack of substitutions during yesterday’s play-off semi-final second left exit at the hands of Blackpool had any bearing on the final result.

The visitors made all three changes by the 74th minute, with towering centre forward Armand Gnanduillet proving an inspired introduction, as he crucially beat Town keeper Stuart Moore to Mark Cullen's hopeful ball into the box, making it 3-2 on the night and drawing his side level on aggregate.

Jones only made one alteration, that to bring on Jordan Cook for his first minutes in over a month, replacing Olly Lee with eight minutes to go, with the midfielder unable to keep out Kelvin Mellor’s header from the goal-line in stoppage time.

On his decision not to bring on the likes of Ollie Palmer, Jack Marriott or Luke Gambin, Town’s boss said: “We could have made changes, but we never, we were in total command of a game.

“Then we thought the minimum we were doing was going into extra time. We hadn’t had any threats from anything and then suddenly we don’t defend a set-play well enough and it’s an error for the goal.

“You can’t make changes for that. We would have made changes in extra time going into it, but it was one of those things.”

Defender Alan Sheehan looked like he was struggling with cramp late on, but on the defender not leaving the field, Jones added: “We were looking to make the changes, but he’s okay, then he’s not, it’s a bit frantic late on and so on.